"System" task hogging CPU

I am running XP x64 edition on a quad Opteron machine and have been very
pleased with system stability and performance so far. Today I took a look at
the system utilization in the task manager, and found out that the "System"
task (that's the kernel I suppose) was hogging one of my four CPU's (always
the 4th btw, strong affinity).

I tried rebooting and shut down all system services and processes that let
themselves be shutdown, without any effect. I can not tell what exactly
caused this odd behavior, since I do not check resource utilization on a
regular basis and a CPU hogging process can go undetected for a while on a MP
machine.

Do you know of any tools I might use to narrow down the problem?

PhilippU
Sun May 14 15:42:01 CDT 2006

I forgot to tell that I already shut down the DCOM service, so that's not it.

Simon
Sun May 14 16:26:05 CDT 2006

Hi Philipp

Are you running Terminal Server on this machine (or Remote Access if it's an
XP box) with a default printer selected?

It's an 'undocumented feature' of Terminal Server that it can get sometimes
get upset trying to talk to a printer (usually network) and nail one of the
CPUs in the manner you describe. It's all to do with Winlogon and
authenticating on the printer. Killing Spoolsvc.* usually works.

I have seen this happen on 32 bit and 64 bit servers. There's also a
background thread which zeros out pages on disk when you're not using the
machine but that's not normally hogging the System.

Try SysInternals Process Explorer
(http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html) which includes
a 'super task manager' which might help you.

The x64 bit version can be downloaded from here:
http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/ProcessExplorerAmd64.zip

Hope this helps,
Simon.

______________________________________________
Simon Meacham, MCP MBCS
64 bit blog @ http://lxivdigiti.wordpress.com
For email: Remove ".nospam" from end of address.
______________________________________________

"Philipp U." <Philipp U.@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:ED607096-F51C-40F4-A421-9417C003F845@microsoft.com...
>I am running XP x64 edition on a quad Opteron machine and have been very
> pleased with system stability and performance so far. Today I took a look
> at
> the system utilization in the task manager, and found out that the
> "System"
> task (that's the kernel I suppose) was hogging one of my four CPU's
> (always
> the 4th btw, strong affinity).
>
> I tried rebooting and shut down all system services and processes that let
> themselves be shutdown, without any effect. I can not tell what exactly
> caused this odd behavior, since I do not check resource utilization on a
> regular basis and a CPU hogging process can go undetected for a while on a
> MP
> machine.
>
> Do you know of any tools I might use to narrow down the problem?

PhilippU
Mon May 15 11:20:03 CDT 2006

"Simon Meacham" wrote:
> Hi Philipp
>
> Are you running Terminal Server on this machine (or Remote Access if it's an
> XP box) with a default printer selected?
>
> It's an 'undocumented feature' of Terminal Server that it can get sometimes
> get upset trying to talk to a printer (usually network) and nail one of the
> CPUs in the manner you describe. It's all to do with Winlogon and
> authenticating on the printer. Killing Spoolsvc.* usually works.
>
> I have seen this happen on 32 bit and 64 bit servers. There's also a
> background thread which zeros out pages on disk when you're not using the
> machine but that's not normally hogging the System.

Hi Simon. I disabled the remote service and removed all printers without any
effect, so that does not appear to be the issue.

> Try SysInternals Process Explorer
> (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html) which includes
> a 'super task manager' which might help you.
>
> The x64 bit version can be downloaded from here:
> http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/ProcessExplorerAmd64.zip
>
> Hope this helps,
> Simon.

This is really a great tool. It allowed me to pin-point the location in the
System task where CPU cycles are wasted:

http://ctfmix.org/~aiwa/hog.jpg

There appears to be something going on between ACPI.sys and the
Ipv4AddressToString function in the kernel.

Apparently I get a lot of hardware interrupts and deferred procedure calls:

http://ctfmix.org/~aiwa/hog2.jpg

When I look at the properties of the System task, I see 0 I/O operations or
page fault deltas. However, the number of contexts constantly changes.

I unplugged all externel peripherals without any effect on hardware
interrupts or CPU utilization. I have a SoundBlaster X-Fi, a 3ware hardware
RAID controller, and 2 GeForce 7800 installed, all working perfectly normal.

Thanks for getting me thus far :) Any further ideas?

Philipp

Simon
Tue May 16 04:59:17 CDT 2006

Hi Philipp

It looks like a driver is to blame for one of your remaining cards. I was
going to blame the Soundblaster (they have a bad rep for this) before seeing
it's the new one with very low CPU usage.

Then I found this thread
http://www.sysinternals.com/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=837&PN=1 here on
sysinternals from last year which seems very similar to the problem you're
encountering. In all cases it appeared to be the NVidia Drivers which were
to blame, ACPI.sys, high DPCs, one processor nailed at 100%.

Trying uninstalling the graphics card and drivers, and see what happens to
system performance then put it back again.

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers
Simon.

--
______________________________________________
Simon Meacham, MCP MBCS
64 bit blog @ http://lxivdigiti.wordpress.com
For email: Remove ".nospam" from end of address.
______________________________________________

"Philipp U." <PhilippU@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:B76ACB5E-76E8-4968-9DAB-B6C1E3978100@microsoft.com...
> "Simon Meacham" wrote:
>> Hi Philipp
>>
>> Are you running Terminal Server on this machine (or Remote Access if it's
>> an
>> XP box) with a default printer selected?
>>
>> It's an 'undocumented feature' of Terminal Server that it can get
>> sometimes
>> get upset trying to talk to a printer (usually network) and nail one of
>> the
>> CPUs in the manner you describe. It's all to do with Winlogon and
>> authenticating on the printer. Killing Spoolsvc.* usually works.
>>
>> I have seen this happen on 32 bit and 64 bit servers. There's also a
>> background thread which zeros out pages on disk when you're not using the
>> machine but that's not normally hogging the System.
>
> Hi Simon. I disabled the remote service and removed all printers without
> any
> effect, so that does not appear to be the issue.
>
>> Try SysInternals Process Explorer
>> (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html) which
>> includes
>> a 'super task manager' which might help you.
>>
>> The x64 bit version can be downloaded from here:
>> http://www.sysinternals.com/Files/ProcessExplorerAmd64.zip
>>
>> Hope this helps,
>> Simon.
>
> This is really a great tool. It allowed me to pin-point the location in
> the
> System task where CPU cycles are wasted:
>
> http://ctfmix.org/~aiwa/hog.jpg
>
> There appears to be something going on between ACPI.sys and the
> Ipv4AddressToString function in the kernel.
>
> Apparently I get a lot of hardware interrupts and deferred procedure
> calls:
>
> http://ctfmix.org/~aiwa/hog2.jpg
>
> When I look at the properties of the System task, I see 0 I/O operations
> or
> page fault deltas. However, the number of contexts constantly changes.
>
> I unplugged all externel peripherals without any effect on hardware
> interrupts or CPU utilization. I have a SoundBlaster X-Fi, a 3ware
> hardware
> RAID controller, and 2 GeForce 7800 installed, all working perfectly
> normal.
>
> Thanks for getting me thus far :) Any further ideas?
>
> Philipp

PhilippU
Tue May 16 11:13:02 CDT 2006

"Simon Meacham" wrote:

> Hi Philipp
>
> It looks like a driver is to blame for one of your remaining cards. I was
> going to blame the Soundblaster (they have a bad rep for this) before seeing
> it's the new one with very low CPU usage.
>
> Then I found this thread
> http://www.sysinternals.com/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=837&PN=1 here on
> sysinternals from last year which seems very similar to the problem you're
> encountering. In all cases it appeared to be the NVidia Drivers which were
> to blame, ACPI.sys, high DPCs, one processor nailed at 100%.
>
> Trying uninstalling the graphics card and drivers, and see what happens to
> system performance then put it back again.
>
> Let us know how you get on.
>
> Cheers
> Simon.

Thanks for your effort. It might very well be a driver issue. Indeed, I
updated my graphics card drivers just a few days ago. I already suspected
nVidia and downdated the drivers again --to no avail though. Then again,
drivers often make irreversible changes to the system. I will keep working in
that direction.

Thanks again,
Philipp

Tony
Tue May 16 13:20:25 CDT 2006

I don't know if this is of any help, but for nVidia drivers you may have to
go all the way back to V. 7184 from a year ago, as I remember, that one ran
anything you would throw at it.

V. 77xx had problems, and later I've noticed several that had peculiar
performance. Nothing clear to point my finger on.

Also, NGOHQ.com have tweaked drivers, not just for performance - I recommend
you give them the once-over at least.

Regards, Tony. . .


"Philipp U." <PhilippU@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E57991CD-029C-4AA8-ADCD-4987D3C81BB2@microsoft.com...
> "Simon Meacham" wrote:
>
>> Hi Philipp
>>
>> It looks like a driver is to blame for one of your remaining cards. I was
>> going to blame the Soundblaster (they have a bad rep for this) before
>> seeing
>> it's the new one with very low CPU usage.
>>
>> Then I found this thread
>> http://www.sysinternals.com/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=837&PN=1 here on
>> sysinternals from last year which seems very similar to the problem
>> you're
>> encountering. In all cases it appeared to be the NVidia Drivers which
>> were
>> to blame, ACPI.sys, high DPCs, one processor nailed at 100%.
>>
>> Trying uninstalling the graphics card and drivers, and see what happens
>> to
>> system performance then put it back again.
>>
>> Let us know how you get on.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Simon.
>
> Thanks for your effort. It might very well be a driver issue. Indeed, I
> updated my graphics card drivers just a few days ago. I already suspected
> nVidia and downdated the drivers again --to no avail though. Then again,
> drivers often make irreversible changes to the system. I will keep working
> in
> that direction.
>
> Thanks again,
> Philipp

PhilippU
Tue May 16 14:44:03 CDT 2006

"Tony Sperling" wrote:

> I don't know if this is of any help, but for nVidia drivers you may have to
> go all the way back to V. 7184 from a year ago, as I remember, that one ran
> anything you would throw at it.
>
> V. 77xx had problems, and later I've noticed several that had peculiar
> performance. Nothing clear to point my finger on.
>
> Also, NGOHQ.com have tweaked drivers, not just for performance - I recommend
> you give them the once-over at least.
>
> Regards, Tony. . .

Hi Tony.

I tried a variety of graphics, sound card, and RAID controller drivers
today, without any effect on CPU utilization. I further reset my BIOS to
defaults... nothing. Booting windows in safe mode does not change the
situation. I even removed all cards (except the graphics cards of course)
from the mainboard to no effect. Ah, and I removed those pesky StarForce
drivers (how they passed the Windows Logo Test remains a mystery)... nada, of
course.

Now for the interesting part. I _suspended_ the ACPI.sys thread with the
Process Explorer tool (brilliant piece of software btw), and my PC kept
running just fine. In fact, I can play games, listen to music, browse the
net, and access all my hard drives. Whatever is keeping me busy is not only a
resource hog, but also completely useless.

Here's a stack trace:

ntoskrnl.exe!KeDelayExecutionThread+0x175
ntoskrnl.exe!KeDelayExecutionThread+0x5a3
ntoskrnl.exe!KeWaitForMutexObject+0x6af
ntoskrnl.exe!KeStackAttachProcess+0x1ec
ntoskrnl.exe!KeReadStateMutex+0xcc6
ntoskrnl.exe!KeUpdateSystemTime+0x42d
ntoskrnl.exe!KeReleaseSpinLock+0xc
ACPI.sys+0x101be
ACPI.sys+0x223af
ACPI.sys+0x212e7
ACPI.sys+0x23812
ACPI.sys+0x238b8
ACPI.sys+0x1b185
ntoskrnl.exe!ObAssignSecurity+0x43e
ntoskrnl.exe!KeInsertQueue+0x2e6

Maybe someone working for Microsoft can figure that out. Since ACPI.sys
appears to be stripped, I can only speculate that it is stuck in an infinite
loop involving a spin lock. Whether that is a kernel bug introduced with one
of the latest hotfixes, or a driver bug, I can not tell.

Tony
Tue May 16 19:00:57 CDT 2006

Well, at least it is far more interesting to follow your 'travails', than it
is to try and wiggle out of it, I expect.

Is this an early Opteron system? Like a first generation board - how about
your BIOS, have you ever looked for an update? Some boards are said should
not run with 'Cool&Quiet active, and you should try and disable any BIOS
suppport that you do not use; just a couple of the things that has been
giving people grey hairs here.

And then there's my favorit helper - put the machine on to a well lit table
and carefully remove every card and cable from it's connector and reseat
them in succession, so as not to forget where they belong, this includes the
memory as well. And of course, running a thorough memory test-suite over
night as a minimum, is an option to.

Have you thought about making a complete back-up, taking the system down and
install clean, from scratch? It's amazing, in my experience, how much wisdom
you pick up from daily contact with your digital 'pal', and seeing it naked
after a while can give you a whole new perspective on those troubles. It is
a 'fishy' one, though, I have to say.

Perhaps you should pay AMD a visit, they have a little library of technical
white papers in PDF format for each of their processors, if nothing turns
up, let support have a look at those print-outs of your's - they have the
expertise, after all.

I hope I get to hear the good news at the end of all this!


Tony. . .

Tony
Wed May 17 02:48:36 CDT 2006

Hi, again!

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182,00.html

This is where you'll find the AMD documentation I was talking about. Even if
it doesn't help you, it is still highly interesting.

Tony. . .


"Tony Sperling" <tony.sperling@dbREMOVEmail.dk> wrote in message
news:eYDG9TUeGHA.5012@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> Well, at least it is far more interesting to follow your 'travails', than
> it is to try and wiggle out of it, I expect.
>
> Is this an early Opteron system? Like a first generation board - how about
> your BIOS, have you ever looked for an update? Some boards are said should
> not run with 'Cool&Quiet active, and you should try and disable any BIOS
> suppport that you do not use; just a couple of the things that has been
> giving people grey hairs here.
>
> And then there's my favorit helper - put the machine on to a well lit
> table and carefully remove every card and cable from it's connector and
> reseat them in succession, so as not to forget where they belong, this
> includes the memory as well. And of course, running a thorough memory
> test-suite over night as a minimum, is an option to.
>
> Have you thought about making a complete back-up, taking the system down
> and install clean, from scratch? It's amazing, in my experience, how much
> wisdom you pick up from daily contact with your digital 'pal', and seeing
> it naked after a while can give you a whole new perspective on those
> troubles. It is a 'fishy' one, though, I have to say.
>
> Perhaps you should pay AMD a visit, they have a little library of
> technical white papers in PDF format for each of their processors, if
> nothing turns up, let support have a look at those print-outs of your's -
> they have the expertise, after all.
>
> I hope I get to hear the good news at the end of all this!
>
>
> Tony. . .
>

PhilippU
Wed May 17 16:40:02 CDT 2006

"Tony Sperling" wrote:

> Well, at least it is far more interesting to follow your 'travails', than it
> is to try and wiggle out of it, I expect.

Glad my misery has a positive side ;)

> Is this an early Opteron system? Like a first generation board - how about
> your BIOS, have you ever looked for an update? Some boards are said should
> not run with 'Cool&Quiet active, and you should try and disable any BIOS
> suppport that you do not use; just a couple of the things that has been
> giving people grey hairs here.

It's a dual-socket Tyan K8WE Thunder with 2 Opteron 280, codename Italy,
mounted. I bought them right when they became available, so it is probably an
early stepping. Still, I have very little reason to suspect them of being the
troublemakers here.

> And then there's my favorit helper - put the machine on to a well lit table
> and carefully remove every card and cable from it's connector and reseat
> them in succession, so as not to forget where they belong, this includes the
> memory as well. And of course, running a thorough memory test-suite over
> night as a minimum, is an option to.

I already removed everything from the board that was removable. If it's a
hardware issue, it's permanent.

> Have you thought about making a complete back-up, taking the system down and
> install clean, from scratch? It's amazing, in my experience, how much wisdom
> you pick up from daily contact with your digital 'pal', and seeing it naked
> after a while can give you a whole new perspective on those troubles. It is
> a 'fishy' one, though, I have to say.

Yes I did think about it. Then again, I am not one of they guys who readily
accepts wiping his hard-disk every once in a while because Microsoft does not
give me the forensic tools necessary to fix my system. Moreover, I have no
interest in explaining some telephonist in Bangalore why I need yet another
activation code.

> Perhaps you should pay AMD a visit, they have a little library of technical
> white papers in PDF format for each of their processors, if nothing turns
> up, let support have a look at those print-outs of your's - they have the
> expertise, after all.

I would gladly contact AMD, Microsoft, or whoever might be of help. But
unless I have hard evidence that points in any direction, I can not
reasonably expect them to listen.

> I hope I get to hear the good news at the end of all this!

So do I. Thanks for the cheers :)

Btw, I checked out the AMD site. I had already installed the Cool&Quiet
drivers, and I remember downloading some instruction set specifications for
assembly optimizations (SSE/3DNow vectorizations) I wrote at work.

Philipp

P.S.: I don't have time to experiment tonight. Maybe I have more info
tomorrow.

Simon
Thu May 18 02:10:57 CDT 2006

I once had an Asus dual proc board which worked fine in APM mode but when
the bios was flashed to the (then new) ACPI it nailed one of the cpus to
100% because an interupt line was physically wired wrong.

I did some poking around about your board on the board on
http://www.tyan.com/support/html/b_s2895.html.

Last BIOS was late March of this year which shows an MP fix to do with an
IRQ/APIC error in the IRQMAP which looked interesting...
TYAN Thunder K8WE (S2895) V1.03 (ftp://ftp.tyan.com/bios/2895_103.zip)
New features and Fixes :
* Updated nVidia PXE version (v229.xxx)
* Updated AMD PowerNOW! support
* Fixed and issue with the LSI SCSI Option ROM not working
correctly when enabled or disabled from the bios
* Relate Sys Fan1 and Fan4 with Auto Fan control settings, Auto
will run 50% output, Full will be 100% and Quiet 0%
* Fixex an issue where Video does not come back on from an
S1 state
* Updated CPU temp reporting for greater accuracy
* Update the max PCI scsi drive number to 16.
* The device on IO4 has gotten incorrect APIC routing, update
link2.asi to fix it.
* Fixed some issues with the Option ROM's of some VGA cards
which failed to boot up the system and hang at post code 49h
* Enable IO APIC on IO4
* Fixed a MP-BIOS error that indicated 8254 timer has not been
connected to IOAPIC error by remove the INIT2 from legacy
IRQMAP.
* Fix CPU temp offset has not been programmed properly
problem by reverse the Offset programmed on both CPU.
* Empty CPU socket will now report no temperature

Also interesting was the previous fix which included the ominous statement

"NOTE: If you are running a current OS installed with nVidia nForce driver
v6.39 and bios version v1.01, you will need to re-install your OS using at
least nVidia nForce driver v6.66 and bios v1.02."

What's your BIOS rev? And have you reinstalled since BIOS 1.01?

Cheers
Simon.

--
______________________________________________
Simon Meacham, MCP MBCS
64 bit blog @ http://lxivdigiti.wordpress.com
For email: Remove ".nospam" from end of address.
______________________________________________

"Philipp U." <PhilippU@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:344D72E0-3DCC-48B0-9F7D-F3AB7A559A07@microsoft.com...
> "Tony Sperling" wrote:
>
>> Well, at least it is far more interesting to follow your 'travails', than
>> it
>> is to try and wiggle out of it, I expect.
>
> Glad my misery has a positive side ;)
>
>> Is this an early Opteron system? Like a first generation board - how
>> about
>> your BIOS, have you ever looked for an update? Some boards are said
>> should
>> not run with 'Cool&Quiet active, and you should try and disable any BIOS
>> suppport that you do not use; just a couple of the things that has been
>> giving people grey hairs here.
>
> It's a dual-socket Tyan K8WE Thunder with 2 Opteron 280, codename Italy,
> mounted. I bought them right when they became available, so it is probably
> an
> early stepping. Still, I have very little reason to suspect them of being
> the
> troublemakers here.
>
>> And then there's my favorit helper - put the machine on to a well lit
>> table
>> and carefully remove every card and cable from it's connector and reseat
>> them in succession, so as not to forget where they belong, this includes
>> the
>> memory as well. And of course, running a thorough memory test-suite over
>> night as a minimum, is an option to.
>
> I already removed everything from the board that was removable. If it's a
> hardware issue, it's permanent.
>
>> Have you thought about making a complete back-up, taking the system down
>> and
>> install clean, from scratch? It's amazing, in my experience, how much
>> wisdom
>> you pick up from daily contact with your digital 'pal', and seeing it
>> naked
>> after a while can give you a whole new perspective on those troubles. It
>> is
>> a 'fishy' one, though, I have to say.
>
> Yes I did think about it. Then again, I am not one of they guys who
> readily
> accepts wiping his hard-disk every once in a while because Microsoft does
> not
> give me the forensic tools necessary to fix my system. Moreover, I have no
> interest in explaining some telephonist in Bangalore why I need yet
> another
> activation code.
>
>> Perhaps you should pay AMD a visit, they have a little library of
>> technical
>> white papers in PDF format for each of their processors, if nothing turns
>> up, let support have a look at those print-outs of your's - they have the
>> expertise, after all.
>
> I would gladly contact AMD, Microsoft, or whoever might be of help. But
> unless I have hard evidence that points in any direction, I can not
> reasonably expect them to listen.
>
>> I hope I get to hear the good news at the end of all this!
>
> So do I. Thanks for the cheers :)
>
> Btw, I checked out the AMD site. I had already installed the Cool&Quiet
> drivers, and I remember downloading some instruction set specifications
> for
> assembly optimizations (SSE/3DNow vectorizations) I wrote at work.
>
> Philipp
>
> P.S.: I don't have time to experiment tonight. Maybe I have more info
> tomorrow.

Tony
Thu May 18 07:09:31 CDT 2006

Hi, Philipp.

1. The reason for identifying the earliness of that system, was not to throw
suspicion on the hardware - I was thinking of the BIOS.

2. Having hard evidence is always nice. Yes, I know the feeling, but the
technical division at AMD would be very interested in hearing about anything
of this order, I'd suspect, the trouble, as you say is getting past the help
desk! If you tell them as calmly as possible that you need to contact a
technician because ACPI.SYS is strangling your processors, I'd be surprised
if they (HD!) would have any more questions about the issue. I am possitive
that you may very well expect them to listen.

3. O.K. you have the C&Q drivers, but have you tried disabling it? And
PowerNow to, as Simon is referring to below.

Over all, Simon's findings seem to throw light on your problem, this is
valuable research!


Tony. . .


"Philipp U." <PhilippU@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:344D72E0-3DCC-48B0-9F7D-F3AB7A559A07@microsoft.com...
> "Tony Sperling" wrote:
>
>> Well, at least it is far more interesting to follow your 'travails', than
>> it
>> is to try and wiggle out of it, I expect.
>
> Glad my misery has a positive side ;)
>
>> Is this an early Opteron system? Like a first generation board - how
>> about
>> your BIOS, have you ever looked for an update? Some boards are said
>> should
>> not run with 'Cool&Quiet active, and you should try and disable any BIOS
>> suppport that you do not use; just a couple of the things that has been
>> giving people grey hairs here.
>
> It's a dual-socket Tyan K8WE Thunder with 2 Opteron 280, codename Italy,
> mounted. I bought them right when they became available, so it is probably
> an
> early stepping. Still, I have very little reason to suspect them of being
> the
> troublemakers here.
>
>> And then there's my favorit helper - put the machine on to a well lit
>> table
>> and carefully remove every card and cable from it's connector and reseat
>> them in succession, so as not to forget where they belong, this includes
>> the
>> memory as well. And of course, running a thorough memory test-suite over
>> night as a minimum, is an option to.
>
> I already removed everything from the board that was removable. If it's a
> hardware issue, it's permanent.
>
>> Have you thought about making a complete back-up, taking the system down
>> and
>> install clean, from scratch? It's amazing, in my experience, how much
>> wisdom
>> you pick up from daily contact with your digital 'pal', and seeing it
>> naked
>> after a while can give you a whole new perspective on those troubles. It
>> is
>> a 'fishy' one, though, I have to say.
>
> Yes I did think about it. Then again, I am not one of they guys who
> readily
> accepts wiping his hard-disk every once in a while because Microsoft does
> not
> give me the forensic tools necessary to fix my system. Moreover, I have no
> interest in explaining some telephonist in Bangalore why I need yet
> another
> activation code.
>
>> Perhaps you should pay AMD a visit, they have a little library of
>> technical
>> white papers in PDF format for each of their processors, if nothing turns
>> up, let support have a look at those print-outs of your's - they have the
>> expertise, after all.
>
> I would gladly contact AMD, Microsoft, or whoever might be of help. But
> unless I have hard evidence that points in any direction, I can not
> reasonably expect them to listen.
>
>> I hope I get to hear the good news at the end of all this!
>
> So do I. Thanks for the cheers :)
>
> Btw, I checked out the AMD site. I had already installed the Cool&Quiet
> drivers, and I remember downloading some instruction set specifications
> for
> assembly optimizations (SSE/3DNow vectorizations) I wrote at work.
>
> Philipp
>
> P.S.: I don't have time to experiment tonight. Maybe I have more info
> tomorrow.

PhilippU
Fri May 19 17:24:01 CDT 2006

Thanks for your input Simon and Tony.

As for my BIOS and nForce driver. I have been running nForce 6.69 ever since
I set up the system (December 2005). The problem appeared after installing
the latest nForce driver (84.25) for x64. I am pretty sure of that after
checking my system logs. I have not had installed anything driver-related for
weeks before that.

Since the problem appeared, I have tried a plethora of driver versions and
even updated my BIOS and every flashable piece of firmware in the system. As
I said, I even removed anything removable except the graphics cards and tried
safe mode.

Take a look at this thread I stumbled across:

http://www.sysinternals.com/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=837&PN=1

I have just appended my story to the end of it. It appears I am not alone,
though my hardware configuration is rather unusual. Still, the problem
appears to be fairly common with GeForce cards and dual-core CPUs.

Since the RATTV3 tool does not work on x64, I can not (yet) verify that my
graphics cards are to blame. I don't dare to reinstall x64, because it might
very well be in vain... Maybe I will set up a 32-bit XP to see whether the
problem transcends operating system boundaries and launch RATTV3 there.

Philipp

Tony
Fri May 19 19:22:50 CDT 2006

I dare say you're not alone!Wow - this may warrant a kind of 'Spanish
Inquisition'.

I mentioned the drivers from http://www.ngohq.com , did you ever try those?
It's a long shot, and it's still the nVidia drivers but they have been
re-worked enough to support all the cards that the original did not, and in
your situation anything is worth trying, I suspect. Think of all those that
would benefit with you!

Several of the posters mentioned replacing the cards as working, I wonder if
you should check withnVidia if they should happen to have a BIOS update
laying around for your card?

Tony. . .


"Philipp U." <PhilippU@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0EBC6249-E7BA-4D92-B9A5-D27C6E798FB3@microsoft.com...
> Thanks for your input Simon and Tony.
>
> As for my BIOS and nForce driver. I have been running nForce 6.69 ever
> since
> I set up the system (December 2005). The problem appeared after installing
> the latest nForce driver (84.25) for x64. I am pretty sure of that after
> checking my system logs. I have not had installed anything driver-related
> for
> weeks before that.
>
> Since the problem appeared, I have tried a plethora of driver versions and
> even updated my BIOS and every flashable piece of firmware in the system.
> As
> I said, I even removed anything removable except the graphics cards and
> tried
> safe mode.
>
> Take a look at this thread I stumbled across:
>
> http://www.sysinternals.com/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=837&PN=1
>
> I have just appended my story to the end of it. It appears I am not alone,
> though my hardware configuration is rather unusual. Still, the problem
> appears to be fairly common with GeForce cards and dual-core CPUs.
>
> Since the RATTV3 tool does not work on x64, I can not (yet) verify that my
> graphics cards are to blame. I don't dare to reinstall x64, because it
> might
> very well be in vain... Maybe I will set up a 32-bit XP to see whether the
> problem transcends operating system boundaries and launch RATTV3 there.
>
> Philipp

PhilippU
Sat May 20 18:11:01 CDT 2006

"Tony Sperling" wrote:

> I dare say you're not alone!Wow - this may warrant a kind of 'Spanish
> Inquisition'.
>
> I mentioned the drivers from http://www.ngohq.com , did you ever try those?
> It's a long shot, and it's still the nVidia drivers but they have been
> re-worked enough to support all the cards that the original did not, and in
> your situation anything is worth trying, I suspect. Think of all those that
> would benefit with you!
>
> Several of the posters mentioned replacing the cards as working, I wonder if
> you should check withnVidia if they should happen to have a BIOS update
> laying around for your card?
>
> Tony. . .

I tried the NGO and EVGA drivers. No effect on the interrupt bombardment :(
NVidia does not appear to have firmware updates for their cards. The last
time I ever updated a gfx card firmware was for my Matrox Mystique ;)

I am thinking of writing my own ETW [1] client similar to RATTV3 because I
can not find any decent tracing tools for x64. I won't have time to start
with that for another week.

Philipp

Tony
Sun May 21 03:38:43 CDT 2006

Yes, EVGA do have BIOS Updates on their Drivers download list!

http://www.evga.com/support/drivers/

(Good thinkin', Jud.)


Tony. . .


"Philipp U." <PhilippU@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:393891E0-F440-4372-904F-E3C4FAA20D2F@microsoft.com...
> "Tony Sperling" wrote:
>
>> I dare say you're not alone!Wow - this may warrant a kind of 'Spanish
>> Inquisition'.
>>
>> I mentioned the drivers from http://www.ngohq.com , did you ever try
>> those?
>> It's a long shot, and it's still the nVidia drivers but they have been
>> re-worked enough to support all the cards that the original did not, and
>> in
>> your situation anything is worth trying, I suspect. Think of all those
>> that
>> would benefit with you!
>>
>> Several of the posters mentioned replacing the cards as working, I wonder
>> if
>> you should check withnVidia if they should happen to have a BIOS update
>> laying around for your card?
>>
>> Tony. . .
>
> I tried the NGO and EVGA drivers. No effect on the interrupt bombardment
> :(
> NVidia does not appear to have firmware updates for their cards. The last
> time I ever updated a gfx card firmware was for my Matrox Mystique ;)
>
> I am thinking of writing my own ETW [1] client similar to RATTV3 because I
> can not find any decent tracing tools for x64. I won't have time to start
> with that for another week.
>
> Philipp

Tony
Sun May 21 18:53:39 CDT 2006

I found this in the README to the AMD processor driver for XPx64:

KNOWN LIMITATIONS:
1) The processor performance state may not be restored to the maximum state
if the CPU runs at 100 percent. This problem occurs if the computer is
100 percent busywhen the power policy changes.

For more information and support options, please refer to the following
website:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=330512

2) "System Properties" reports wrong processor speed.

For more information, please refer to the following website:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303602

3) The Processor speed may be reported incorrectly in Windows XP.

For more information, please refer to the following website:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;316965

--------

I have not made up my mind yet, if this has any significance?

It sounds as though, if the processor is 100% busy the driver steps in wiith
it's throttling algorithm and then never releases it again. This would be
dependent in some fashion on ACPI, and may all-in-all show off a personality
aspect with the dual processor set-up.

This, in turn could mean that if one processor remains throttled, it has to
work harder to keep up? In effect being locked at 100%, but still in a
throttled condition.

O.K. - I don't know - just one more thing to consider.


Tony. . .

PhilippU
Sun May 28 18:32:02 CDT 2006

I am happy to tell you, that I fixed the problem. A thread on sysinternals
that linked the standby Mode to DPCs gave me the idea:

http://www.sysinternals.com/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=837&PN=0&TPN=19

I never use the Windows standby mode, but around the time the problems
appeared, I remember accidentally pushing the standby mode, thereby crashing
my PC. Obviously some piece of hardware or Windows itself remembered that
failed standby attempt and kept flooding my kernel with interrupts ever
since. I resolved the issue by sending the system to standby... this time
without crash of course. Zero CPU usage since that.

Thanks to everyone who helped. Btw, I am using ngohq drivers now for
increased performance ;)

Philipp

Tony
Mon May 29 00:01:24 CDT 2006

That is really good to hear. Must say, this puts one of my favorit
incantations - "what was the last thing you did?" - into a completely new
light. Weird!

Although, this has not affected my sleep, it is really nice to have the
succes story as well.

Thank you, Philipp for reporting back!


Tony. . .


"Philipp U." <PhilippU@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:12B27AB7-3077-4F18-A73E-CBDD3C20FA79@microsoft.com...
>I am happy to tell you, that I fixed the problem. A thread on sysinternals
> that linked the standby Mode to DPCs gave me the idea:
>
> http://www.sysinternals.com/Forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=837&PN=0&TPN=19
>
> I never use the Windows standby mode, but around the time the problems
> appeared, I remember accidentally pushing the standby mode, thereby
> crashing
> my PC. Obviously some piece of hardware or Windows itself remembered that
> failed standby attempt and kept flooding my kernel with interrupts ever
> since. I resolved the issue by sending the system to standby... this time
> without crash of course. Zero CPU usage since that.
>
> Thanks to everyone who helped. Btw, I am using ngohq drivers now for
> increased performance ;)
>
> Philipp

SueinFlorida
Tue Jun 20 10:44:02 CDT 2006

I always enjoy reading posts like this because I generally learn something.
If this is one of those "no duh" posts then excuse me but sometimes I've
found that the simplest answer (that no one suspects because you may be too
close to the issue) is generally the correct answer (I think Sherlock Holmes
said something to that effect.)

Have you considered you may have a malware or virus infection?

I have had a bad experience with the Nvidia hardware firewall that they
supply with their chipsets. I couldn't reach a certain site and something
was pegging my cpu out (idleprocess was like 99%). After trying every trick
in the book I have from 20 years of building computers I finally remembered
that I'd installed that damn nvidia firewall---took it out and presto no more
blocked url and no more pegged out cpu.

Just a thought........ Hope it helps.

"Philipp U." wrote:

> I am running XP x64 edition on a quad Opteron machine and have been very
> pleased with system stability and performance so far. Today I took a look at
> the system utilization in the task manager, and found out that the "System"
> task (that's the kernel I suppose) was hogging one of my four CPU's (always
> the 4th btw, strong affinity).
>
> I tried rebooting and shut down all system services and processes that let
> themselves be shutdown, without any effect. I can not tell what exactly
> caused this odd behavior, since I do not check resource utilization on a
> regular basis and a CPU hogging process can go undetected for a while on a MP
> machine.
>
> Do you know of any tools I might use to narrow down the problem?

Tony
Tue Jun 20 18:27:35 CDT 2006

Actually, Philipp managed to solve that issue in the end, turned out to be
the results of a system crash after mistakenly pressing the stand-by button.
Apparently, he never ordinarily used that option. After, successfully
putting the system in stand-by, upon resuming the problem was gone.

This made me wonder what was really going on and I wrote AMD support and had
a very interesting exchange - interesting, for me, since I am shortly in the
market for a dual core upgrade. If any one would like to catch up on what
was said, I'd be happy to contribute a digest of that exchange.

I had meant to give you all a run-down already, but I have lost my internet
connection on the preferred x64 machine, and I will not put it back on until
I am absolutely certain that the NEWDOTNET spyware that has burdened me for
a while is completely gone. So, I will not be looking in here as often as
usual.

Tony. . .


"Sue in Florida" <SueinFlorida@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0E256AEE-14AD-487E-A6A8-D9459DE13173@microsoft.com...
> I always enjoy reading posts like this because I generally learn
something.
> If this is one of those "no duh" posts then excuse me but sometimes I've
> found that the simplest answer (that no one suspects because you may be
too
> close to the issue) is generally the correct answer (I think Sherlock
Holmes
> said something to that effect.)
>
> Have you considered you may have a malware or virus infection?
>
> I have had a bad experience with the Nvidia hardware firewall that they
> supply with their chipsets. I couldn't reach a certain site and something
> was pegging my cpu out (idleprocess was like 99%). After trying every
trick
> in the book I have from 20 years of building computers I finally
remembered
> that I'd installed that damn nvidia firewall---took it out and presto no
more
> blocked url and no more pegged out cpu.
>
> Just a thought........ Hope it helps.
>
> "Philipp U." wrote:
>
> > I am running XP x64 edition on a quad Opteron machine and have been very
> > pleased with system stability and performance so far. Today I took a
look at
> > the system utilization in the task manager, and found out that the
"System"
> > task (that's the kernel I suppose) was hogging one of my four CPU's
(always
> > the 4th btw, strong affinity).
> >
> > I tried rebooting and shut down all system services and processes that
let
> > themselves be shutdown, without any effect. I can not tell what exactly
> > caused this odd behavior, since I do not check resource utilization on a
> > regular basis and a CPU hogging process can go undetected for a while on
a MP
> > machine.
> >
> > Do you know of any tools I might use to narrow down the problem?